


Anterograde

by BeauJakson



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-01-20 15:59:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12436329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeauJakson/pseuds/BeauJakson
Summary: A collision between the old and the new. Chloe Price is visited by the specter of Max's future, but what kind of ramifications will this have on everyone's favorite cluster of lesbians? I seriously wrote this whole thing while drunk, please don't be mad.





	1. Chapter 1

Chloe Price was freaking the fuck out.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that had just had a full-on, tongue-dancing make-out session with Rachel Amber, Arcadia Bay’s very own manic pixie dream-girl, or maybe it was the implications finally settling in after getting expelled from Blackwell Academy.

Or maybe, she mused as she drew her ringing phone from her pocket as Rachel Amber led her along the street that led to her home, it was the fact that Max fucking Caulfield was choosing now of all times to call her.

“Wait, hold on,” Chloe said, and Rachel’s hand left hers, fingers dragging gently along Chloe’s palm in a way that sent tingling shivers up her spine.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long,” Rachel said with her signature mysterious smile, moving to lean against a lamppost while Chloe stared at her phone in utter bewilderment for a moment. Max Caulfield was calling her? Tonight of all nights? First expulsion, then the moment with Drew and Mikey North that felt right out of an episode of Breaking Bad, and of course, Chloe’s stage-acting debut as an Ariel that had no ability to improvise, and now a blast from the past as Chloe’s…best friend? One-time love interest? Given the uncomfortable realizations Chloe had come to recently about her sexuality, she just wasn’t ready to deal with what it meant for her past interactions with her slightly-estranged best friend. Still…Chloe Price, despite her rough-and-tough exterior, could never in a million years let Max Caulfield slip away.

“Um…Max?” Chloe said as she pressed her phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“…Chloe,” Max said through the phone, and Chloe’s heart truly skipped a beat at the tone in her voice. Chloe had only ever heard Max talk like that once before, the same day that…Dad had left. Her voice had sounded so earnest, so…mature. Of course, Max, being a total spaz, didn’t seem to recall the specifics of what she had said to Chloe, but Chloe could never forget her words.

_“I’ll always have your back. Always.”_

“Max, is…everything okay?” Chloe asked, sparing a glance at Rachel, who seemed politely intrigued by the conversation. Shit, had Chloe ever even told her about Max? “What’s up?”

“I…I just wanted to…to talk to you again,” Max said, and Chloe couldn’t help but smile. Max always sounded like she was picking her words out so carefully.

God, she had missed that.

“Well, here I am,” Chloe said with a grin. “Finally got around to missing me, huh? Busy life up in Seattle?”

“So busy,” Max said with a little sigh. “But…not busy enough to forget you, Chloe. I’m…sorry I’m so shitty about…calling you or texting you. I was…I’m just….”

“Really bad at normal social interaction?” Chloe supplied, chiding herself. She had always imagined such a phone call would end with her chewing Max out, calling her bullshit and maybe even hanging up on her. But instead, Max’s earnest little apologies were stealing away her fire bit by bit, and she could only imagine Max’s pained expression, the little bite of her lip as she tried so hard to function on a basic human level.

She was just…too hella fucking cute.

“So hella bad,” Max said, and Chloe let a breathy nose-laugh. Now there were two girls in her life that dropped that word into conversation? Had Max been spending time in Cali? “Chloe…I’m so sorry. You deserve…so much better. But…it looks like you found someone, right? Or I guess Ariel did?”

Oh no…. “What do you mean?” Chloe asked, and she felt her heart sink at the soft little laugh she heard through the phone, and she winced as she basically _saw_ that annoying little smile, the secretive little smirk that had once had Chloe jumping Max and just mercilessly tickling her until they were both breathy and unable to speak, limbs tangled together and noses so close together –

“What is with that look?” Rachel asked, and Chloe shook herself, holding a hand up while she listened to Max’s reply.

“Well, someone just put a video up on YouTube, and I gotta say, you and Prospera have some chemistry,” Max told her, and Chloe groaned.

“Maxine Caulfield, you…scrub that video from your eyeballs right now,” she insisted. “That performance was given under duress, and I will not endorse it!”

“But you look so good in spandex,” Max said with a giggle on her voice, and Chloe suddenly felt…icky. Like she was talking to her husband while her boyfriend watched, or…vice-versa or something. “Sorry, was that too much?”

“No, it’s just…fuck, Max, it’s so amazing to talk to you again,” Chloe admitted, and Max breathed a little laugh into the receiver.

“Chloe, you have…no idea how fucking awesome it is to just…hear your voice again,” she said. “And…Chloe….”

She said Chloe’s name in a way that made her shiver, like it was some treasured word she could only say a few times and was trying to make each one worth it. When she spoke again, Chloe could have sworn she was crying.

“Chloe, I just…wish I could see you again,” she said quietly. “I miss you so…fucking much. And…every day, it gets worse. I’m being so…bad just talking to you.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” Chloe said. “Who’s keeping you from talking to me?”

“I…I dunno,” Max said. “The universe? Time itself? I…ugh, Chloe, can you make me a promise? Please?”

“Max, anything,” Chloe said, frowning as she heard the sadness in her best friend’s voice. Mad as she was at Max, Chloe could never stand to hear her friend be anything less than the spastic but quirky dork she always had been.

“Just…be careful,” Max said. “There’s…a lot of shit coming your way. Your friend, Rachel, she’s…precious, alright? And…both of you…fuck, both of you just need to seriously be…safe. Don’t trust…. Just promise me you won’t get in too deep with Frank.”

“Frank?” Chloe said, feeling a strange chill run down her spin. “Max, how do you know about Frank?”

“Just…trust me, okay?” Max breathed. “Chloe, stay away from him. You think you can trust him, but you _can’t_ and…most of all, keep Rachel away from him.”

“Max, you’re…freaking me out a little,” Chloe said with a nervous laugh.

“I know,” Max sighed. “Chloe, I know, but I just…there’s…so much to tell you that I really can’t, but I’m just…done being the universe’s bitch. I guess…I have you to thank for that. You just…you need to understand, okay? I did everything. Everything I could and…I can’t lose you, Chloe. You are the…only thing that matters to me, okay? Remember? I’ll always have your back.”

“Always,” Chloe breathed.

“So…just…okay, the Prescotts? And Frank. And…there’s going to be a teacher named Mark Jefferson. He’s…he’s honestly the worst of all. Just stay away from all of them, okay? You and Rachel need to avoid them at all costs. Can you promise me that?”

“Max….”

“Promise me!” Max said, and Chloe could hear a little hitching sob in her voice, her stomach twisting at the sound. She could never stand to hear Max so brokenhearted.

“Okay,” she said. “I promise.”

“Okay,” Max breathed softly, letting a soft, breathy laugh. “You look really good as Ariel, by the way.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Chloe huffed, and Max giggled that bubbly little sound that had always made Chloe question herself in very uncomfortably ways. “Max, what is going on with you? This is just like…like that day that….”

“I know,” Max said. “Sometimes I just get…weird. Even weirder than usual. Call it a…vision of the future?”

“Whatever it is, it never seems to lead anywhere good,” Chloe said snidely, and Max sighed.

“It never _seems_ to,” she said, “but I promise it does. And _you_ promised to, so…remember that, okay? Never forget it.”

“Never,” Chloe echoed.

“Anyway, I think…my time is up,” Max said. “I need to go back to being the…stupid younger Max.”

“You know, coming from someone that does drugs, I have to ask…are you on drugs?” Chloe snickered, and Max giggled.

“I’m on the worst drug ever,” she said. “Hindsight. Just…remember your promise, okay? Because I’m not going to.”

“Max, what does this even mean?” Chloe asked, and Max let a quiet noise of distress over the phone.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I won’t know. You have to just…trust me, okay? Trust…trust the even weirder Max that…says this kind of shit and then acts like she has no idea what she just did.”

“The last time I did that, my dad fucking died,” Chloe huffed, and Max breathed into the receiver.

“But you didn’t,” she said. “And…Chloe, I can’t live without you, okay? That’s why this conversation is happening. I can’t…I can’t go on without you in my life. So please, please, do me a favor and stay in it? I know I’m in no place to…to ask you to stay around, but…please? Don’t leave me.”

And with that, she hung up, leaving Chloe with a new definition of the word “irony”. She stared at her phone before stuffing it in her pocket and looking up at Rachel.

“So…who’s Max?” Rachel asked, and Chloe sighed, slumping into Rachel’s arms as her new friend wrapped her in a hug.

“Max was…or is…” Chloe trailed off, unsure how to quantify what she and Max were at that very moment. “We were best friends. I…literally can’t remember a time where…Max Caulfield wasn’t part of my life.”

“So _she’s_ who I’m replacing,” Rachel said with a knowing smile, and Chloe blanched, staring down at her. “Oh, come on. I knew there was _somebody_. Who is she?”

Chloe swallowed past a lump in her throat, stuffing her phone back in her pocket and reaching out for Rachel’s hand. Their fingers twined together as she finally spoke.

“Her…her name is Max Caulfield, and I guess she was the…first person I ever really loved that wasn’t Mom or Dad….”

……

Max sighed as she set her old phone onto her table, looking around her room. It felt so nostalgic to be back in Seattle. It was strange; Arcadia Bay had once been the source of her wistful memories, her longing thoughts of the good old days. Recently, though, Arcadia Bay had supplanted Seattle in her mind, shoving aside years of her life to once again take its place as her home. Of course, that was due in large part to Chloe.

Chloe….

Max sighed, seeing the strange glow of her Focus closing in on her vision. She had only seconds left, mere moments to cherish a time where she and Chloe were alive in the same moment.

_Stupid Past Max! You should have taken advantage of the time you had with her!_

Her eyes squinted shut, tears streaming down her cheeks as she prepared herself to say goodbye, to fast forward past years of her life that she had wasted being a socially awkward shut-in languishing in Seattle while Chloe had lived it up back home with Rachel Amber.

The familiar slideshow of images began. Max taking a picture commemorating her first year as a high-schooler, Max…exploring Seattle with Chloe and Rachel…? Another image flashed in front of her eyes, of her settling into what looked like a dorm room while Rachel Amber and Chloe helped her decorate, and them Max was discussing…something with Mark Jefferson…but then something strange happened….

A skull flashed before her view, looking like it was superimposed over a raven’s face.

_“Nevermore….”_

What…was even happening?

_“Do not fear, child. You have chosen a path to utter destruction. But your act of selflessness will not go unrewarded.”_

Max could only blink against the bright light as it dominated her dreams, her eyes fluttering open.

_Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!_

She staggered out of bed and ambled toward her stairs. Mom and Dad were long gone, at work and not particularly inclined to worry about their daughter, as she was a high-schooler and quite able to take care of herself. Toddling down the stairs, Max reached out and twisted the doorknob, pulling it open to reveal two all-too-familiar faces. When her eyes met Chloe’s she was at a loss for words, staring up at her friend’s.

“Chloe,” she breathed.

“Max,” Chloe sighed right back, stepping in for a hug wish Max eagerly returned. “Oh, God, Chloe….”

“Sorry to drop in on you like this,” Chloe said, giggling softly as Max squeezed her. “But, uh…you basically told us to come here. Do you…remember what happened?”

Max could remember, with too much clarity. They were well outside of the timeline of her picture, but she was still here. More to the point, Chloe was right in front of her, with Rachel Amber in tow. What had she done? What had her simple jaunt to the past to only experience a scant few seconds of Chloe’s company wrought? With such damning evidence in front of her, she could only utter one phrase.

“Wowser.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your cries have been heard. Again, this whole thing was written with very little forethought in mind, and I just plain didn't proofread it, so take it for what it's worth. At least it's longer than the last chapter.

Max Caulfield was freaking the fuck out.

All she’d wanted to do was get to know the Chloe she had missed out on, retroactively. All of those years she had wasted being socially awkward and sometimes even negligent of her best friend, Chloe had been living, doing crazy shit like mixing it up with drug-dealers, going to clandestine indie-rock concerts in the middle of the night, and even making a stage-acting debut alongside Rachel Amber.

All of this had been easily Googled, and Max had chided herself for not doing it sooner. She’d wanted so much to be able to _talk_ about all of this with Chloe, to gently rib her for her somewhat stilted Shakespearian performance, to warn her against getting too deep into Arcadia Bay’s seedy underbelly.

She had just wanted to _talk_ to Chloe, to…to hear her voice again.

She hadn’t counted on finding a _new_ way to fuck up time.

It was now twelve hours since she had focused back to a selfie she had taken on the same night that Chloe had made her stage debut (an enormous coincidence in and of itself), and she was still her fifteen-year-old self, still back in Seattle (though well outside the confines of her Focus point), and apparently in the good graces of some kind of extradimensional being.

More importantly, though, Chloe was here. She didn’t have blue hair yet, and the intricate tattoo was missing from her arm, but she was here, sprawled on Max’s bed like she owned the place while Rachel Amber meandered through Max’s room, seeming almost unduly interested in every intricacy of Max’s life. She picked up Max’s instant camera, peering closely at it and placing it carefully back on her desk.

“So…how did you get here?” Max asked, shutting her bedroom door behind her with a bump of her hip, her hands gripping a tray laden with sandwiches she had thrown together, as well as three cans of Pepsi. She set the food on her bed, stepping back as Rachel and Chloe both dived for the tray, starting in on the sandwiches.

“We hopped a train,” Chloe said through a mouthful of roast beef. “Holy shit, Max, this is a good sandwich.”

“You hopped a train?” Max asked, sitting at her computer chair and spinning to look at Chloe. “Chloe, that’s…really hella dangerous.”

“The dangerous part was when we hitchhiked,” Rachel said, peering curiously at Max. “You say ‘hella’, too? I thought that was just a Cali thing.”

“Um…I…picked it up somewhere,” Max lied. She was more worried about the situation with her best friend and sort-of-girl-love-interest-thing and _her_ love interest. She couldn’t help a small stab of envy at the fact that she’d landed smack dab at the beginning of Chloe’s infatuation with Rachel Amber, but that was dwarfed by the sheer relief at the fact that both girls were alive and actually not in any immediate life-threatening danger. “Wait, you _hitchhiked_!? Chloe….”

“What’s the deal, Max?” Chloe asked. “I mean, yeah, I had to put my foot up some rapey dude’s ass, but I think that’s what he was hoping for. Pretty sure he jizzed in his pants.”

“Chloe, I _always_ worry about you,” Max sighed, and Chloe peered over at her searchingly.

“Because you’re the super-woke Max from the future?” she asked, and she didn’t sound…completely skeptical. Only slightly intrigued and politely doubtful, just as she’d been…or would have been. Okay, tenses were getting confusing. Was she thinking now of an alternate future? Or was she still on a limited timespan? The previous times she’d been in a Focus, it had often felt like an out-of-body experience, or like she was…piloting a past version of herself. This vision of the past didn’t feel like a vision at all, more like she was just…a bit smaller. She had done a bit of growing between sixteen and eighteen, but for the most part, the only difference was that her hair was a bit longer than it had been.

Still, she had convinced Chloe of her power once before, and she could do it again. Come to think of it…did she still even have her power? She looked around and tentatively held her hand out, feeling the familiar tug as she latched onto the progress of time itself and basically yanked it backward. The echoes of unspoken words twisted and turned inside out flitted around her ears, mingling with the rushing, whistling sound of Max using her power.

_Okay. I still have my power. Now I get to convince Chloe I have it. Again._

When she stopped the timestream, Chloe was still taking a bit of her sandwich, so she jumped on the opportunity.

“Or let me guess,” she said. “You hopped a train? And then you hitchhiked and…had to kick a rapey guy in the ass, but you think he might’ve liked it.”

Chloe paused with her mouth full of sandwich, and Max took a moment to appreciate how adorable she looked, all wide-eyed and chewing her way past maybe a little more roast beef than she could manage. She chewed for several more seconds while Rachel watched the two, apparently content just to observe for now.

“How…wait, how did you…?” Chloe spluttered, and Max smiled, watching as Chloe looked between her and Rachel. “Did you tell her – “

“We’ve been together the entire time we’ve been here,” Rachel said, and Max felt that maybe she was having a little freak-out as well, but Rachel was likely well-practiced at hiding her emotions. That fit well with what she knew about her. Rachel had been…or was…a chameleon of sorts, flitting between cliques and niches and meshing with everyone but never quite fitting in anywhere.

It sounded a little lonely, really.

“Max, how did – “

“You told me,” Max said. “You told me the story, and then I rewound time to before you said it.”

“But…do it again!” Chloe said, and Max smirked to herself. Telling a jaded older Chloe about her abilities was one thing, but telling a younger petulant Chloe was just so much more satisfying. “Max, c’mon!”

“You have to tell me something I don’t know about you yet,” Max said in a chiding voice, and Chloe huffed.

“What good is that gonna do?” she asked.

“She’ll rewind and tell you before you’ve told her,” Rachel said from her spot near the wall. “You’re not thinking fourth-dimensionally.”

“I guess I have a problem with that,” Chloe muttered. “Alright, um…my mom is dating some total dickbag named – “

“David Madsen?” Max asked. “So they’re only just dating now?”

“How…. Wait, what do you mean ‘only’ dating?”

“Chloe, they kinda get married,” Max said, and Chloe stared at her for a long moment before she stormed to her feet, placing her hands to her forehead.

“FUCK!” she shouted. “No, she does _not_ marry a shit-stain like that! My own fucking mother does not get that fucking desperate!”

Max knew the worst thing to do right now would be to try to defend David, so she just remained silent while Rachel got to her feet, moving over to pat Chloe on the back. Glancing toward Max, the blonde gave her a significant look, gesturing at Chloe. Max sprung up and hurried over as well, taking Chloe’s hands.

“Well, uh…maybe we can figure out a way to scare him off before that happens now,” Max told Chloe, who smirked.

“Maybe you can work some of your time-travel mind-reading voodoo on him and send Sergeant Mustache packing,” she said. Max giggled a bit, smiling up at Chloe, who smiled right back at her.

“I’ll do everything I can to bring peace back to the Price household,” she promised.

“My dad’s cheating on my mom,” Rachel said suddenly, folding her arms thoughtfully as Max looked over at her. “I just…feel like that’s something you can add on, you know? The Price household and the Amber household? That should freak out past Rachel.”

Max found it a little spooky how quickly Rachel picked up the workings of her time-travel powers, but it did sound like a good idea. Shrugging, she held her hand out and quickly rewound back a few seconds.

“…Mustache packing,” Chloe was saying as time resumed its normal course.

“I’ll do…everything I can to bring peace back to the Price household,” Max said, glancing at Rachel. “And the Ambers. That’s…not cool, what your dad is doing.”

Rachel stared at her, eyes going wide, and even Chloe seemed shocked at this revelation, looking between the two.

“Rachel, I…I didn’t say anything to – “

“No, it’s okay,” Rachel said, blinking at Max with a knowing smile. “I bet me from the future told you to tell me that.”

“You are so much better at this than Chloe,” Max said, and Rachel smiled at her while Chloe huffed.

“Sorry I suck at time-travel,” she muttered. Max just squeezed her hands.

“But you’re my partner in time,” she said, peering up at Chloe, who blushed and spluttered wordlessly before releasing Max’s hands as though burned by them.

“Just…fill us in on the situation from your end, okay?” she demanded, going back to Max’s bed and plunking down to resume devouring her sandwich.

……

Rachel wasn’t entirely sure where she was, but she also was mostly certain that she was dreaming right now.

She seemed to be in a little cinderblock shack of sorts, and from the howling wind and flashing lightning outside, there was quite a storm going on. Surprisingly, the inside of the shack was undisturbed by the roaring gusts, and Rachel could see that someone had done some decorating in this place. A dartboard, some sort of blanket hung up as a tapestry displaying what looked like elephants, and…it looked like someone had scribbled some graffiti on the wall.

‘Chloe Price was here’

She stepped outside, recognizing the place as the American Rust Junkyard, where Chloe had first made her fumbling confession of…love? Infatuation? Misplaced affection? It had been made abundantly clear that Chloe was actually completely head-over-tits for this Max Caulfield girl and had only been using Rachel as some sort of crutch in the girl’s absence. She wanted to be mad at Chloe, to call her out for her completely ‘user’ behavior. But was she any better? She’d originally singled out Chloe as some sort of rebel, detached from the world by such useless notions as sentimentality and emotion. What she had found, though, was a girl that wasn’t so much disinclined to feel as she was _afraid_ to do so. Chloe was just as damaged, if not more so, than Rachel. And that had only made her that much more appealing. Instead of an escape, Rachel had found a kindred spirit.

Now, it seemed, Chloe was drifting away just as soon as she’d found her way into Rachel’s life, drawn toward this Caulfield girl. And Rachel couldn’t blame her at all; everything about the girl screamed well-adjusted and emotionally stable. Rachel only wished she had someone like that in _her_ life. Instead, all she had was a storm, her Tempest of emotions, swirling just beneath the surface, where she had to remain calm, had _always_ had to remain calm. There were her father’s political aspirations to consider, and he wouldn’t abide a troublesome child. A free-spirited artist, sure, as long as that didn’t turn into _too_ free a spirit, too much like…well, Chloe.

A crackle of lighting lit up the sky above her, and Rachel winced, waiting for the boom of thunder, but instead, all she heard was a cacophonous sound of ravens cawing. She saw a vortex in the distance, an enormous funnel bearing down on Arcadia Bay. She made her way amongst the piles of garbage, but with each flash of lightning, the scenery changed. Where a school bus had been, a large fishing boat sat instead, and sometimes there seemed to just be _more_ garbage. Rachel looked around and spotted something moving through the yard, unfettered by the gale-force winds. It was a doe, ambling along ahead of Rachel and occasionally stopping to peer back, apparently making sure she was following.

The doe led her toward a spot amongst the garbage, seemingly at random, but the fact that it had picked this spot seemed peculiar to Rachel. She turned around, jumping when she saw a man standing directly behind her. She stumbled back, tripping and falling into a hole that had not been there moments ago. The man stepped forward, looming over her. He was wearing simple but dressy clothes, pressed pants and a button-down shirt with a jacket worn over it. His handsome face was only complimented by thick-rimmed glasses and a stubble, messy hair completing the look of an aging but still youthful artist.

Under any other circumstances, Rachel might have been attracted to his type; now, though, he only seemed creepy, leering down at Rachel from the rim of the pit she had tumbled into.

_“Don’t worry. This will all be over before you know it.”_

His lips didn’t move, but Rachel could tell it was him speaking. He reached out of her sight, producing a shovel, and Rachel knew he intended to bury her, to snuff her out. Before he could do so, though, there was another blinding flash of lightning, followed by a chorus of crows cawing in the distance. A blue glimmer appeared on the edge of Rachel’s vision, and the smartly-dressed man made a noise of distress before a swarm of glowing blue butterflies swooped down. The fluttering cloud descended on him and surrounded him, ushering him away in a cloudy blue glow, and his cry of protest was cut off with a sudden thunderclap.

And then Rachel was back on the surface, looking down to see that the hole was gone, no trace of its presence left. In front of her, a crow was perched on a jutting piece of a metal frame from some kind of vehicle, and above her, a swarm of the same blue butterflies fluttered up, higher and higher into the starless black sky. As Rachel watched, though, the butterflies flew high enough that they were indistinguishable from stars, and then they _were_ the stars, slowing to a stop and simply dotting the sky. The swirling storm was gone, the howling winds and discordant sounds gone. In their place, Rachel heard only a single voice speaking.

_“She was my angel.”_

_“Rachel saved my life.”_

_“She just left Arcadia. Without a word. Without...me.”_

Was that…Chloe? She sounded so heartbroken. And referring to her?

The raven in front of her cawed once more before taking off, leaving Rachel alone in the junkyard, feeling confused but strangely at peace. Maybe she wasn’t the most emotionally stable, but if Chloe could rely on this Max Caulfield girl, was it too much to hope that there was room for another maladjusted type? There was another thunderclap, and –

Rachel’s eyes snapped open, and she rolled over, looking up from the pile of blankets she’d nested in for the night to see that the sun was just glimmering on the horizon outside the curtained window of Max Caulfield’s room. Max herself seemed strangely absent, her bed empty for the moment. She had told them quite the tale of time travel, deception, corruption, and Rachel’s own untimely demise at the hands of a man by the name of Mark Jefferson. Rachel had been skeptical at first, but something about that dream had shaken her down to her bones. It hadn’t just been a result of Max’s story; it had been a supplementary warning, a final word in case Rachel hadn’t believed the brunette. But Rachel had believed her, and that had been the problem.

Rachel had believed Max Caulfield when she had all but spelled out her feelings for Chloe Price. The girl was completely in love with Chloe, and Chloe absolutely reciprocated those feelings. So where did that leave Rachel?

Sighing, she climbed to her feet and ambled out into the hallway. The trio had presented a passable story to Max’s parents, who had in turn related the tale to a distressed Joyce Price and Rachel’s own parents, who had been somewhat less worried but still politely concerned, at least. This left them all with an open weekend to come to terms with the fact that there was some really major shit going on. Max was currently (and possibly permanently) her future eighteen-year-old self in her sixteen-year-old body, and all of the future knowledge that that implied, and she was trying to stop a cavalcade of disasters from happening at the source. One of those disasters, it seemed, was Rachel’s own death, which was flattering. No doubt there were other much more convenient times to begin interfering, but it was nice to know that Max had deemed her worth saving.

Speaking of Max….

The girl herself made her way out of the bathroom, a flushing sound following behind her as she yawned and headed back for her bed. How strange must it have been for her, effectively trapped in the past, having wound the clock back two years and gotten stuck? Rachel tried to imagine herself as she was now, trapped back in her fourteen-year-old self, and she simply couldn’t reconcile it. Max had apparently made the trip a few times, though it had never been a long-term engagement like it was now. Max caught sight of Rachel and paused in the hallway, fixing her with that doe-eyed look that had probably been the reason Chloe simply couldn’t stay mad at her. Max Caulfield was just too innocent, even when she was being a bit of a bitch about staying in contact. Still, if stranding herself in this sort of time-bending nonsense wasn’t comeuppance enough, Rachel didn’t know what was.

“Um…hey, Rachel,” Max said, gesturing over her shoulder. “You…um, you probably remember where the bathroom is. I told you, right?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said with a small smile. “You didn’t rewind that one.”

Max offered a small pout. “I really don’t do it as often as I did today,” she insisted. “Actually, the last time Chloe made me prove it, it almost got her killed.”

“The train tracks,” Rachel said with a nod. “Yeah, I remember that. She’s pretty stubborn, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Max said, though her affectionate smile told Rachel that this wasn’t nearly the annoyance it was to pretty much everyone else in Chloe’s life. “Yeah, she is.”

“You love her a lot, don’t you?” Rachel said, and Max shrugged.

“Rachel, you…you have to understand,” she said. “I…I lost her so many times. I watched her…I watched her die. I had to save her over and…and over. And after all that, she…asked me to give her up. And I…couldn’t.”

“Because you love her,” Rachel said, and Max fixed her with an expression that was so…intense, so completely full of emotion and affection that she had to look away.

“Yes,” she said. “I love her. I love Chloe, and I would do…anything to try to save her. If all this offers me is a chance to evacuate Arcadia Bay before the storm wipes it out, then that’s all I need. But if this is some jealousy play, I just don’t have time for it. I’m here to save Chloe, not mess with her. If you love her too, then we’re on the same side, and you have nothing to worry about, okay?”

Rachel met Max’s eyes, and what she saw there made her shiver. There was a hardness to that gaze, a weathered weariness that didn’t belong to any fifteen-year-old. Max’s little mind-reading magic tricks had had Chloe convinced, but four seconds of eye contact were all Rachel needed to believe that Max Caulfield was the real deal, and she was offering Rachel a chance to stop a potentially disastrous future.

Maybe she could play along for now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly a sober chapter with a dose of sleep deprivation. Might be a bit rushed at the end. Please enjoy.

Chloe couldn’t recall a night she’d slept better in…well, a long time. As her eyes blearily opened and took in the sight of Max’s ceiling, she smiled at the realization that no, this wasn’t a dream. She and Max really had reunited after one of the most surreal evenings of her life. She stretched, feeling…relaxed. Mornings lately had been groggy affairs, spending minutes on end just trying to drag her tired ass out of bed to confront the shit-show that she called life. Now, she couldn’t wait to hop up and…well, see Max again.

Also, she smelled bacon cooking, and there was no way she was missing out on bacon.

She made a quick pit stop to the bathroom to take a leak, commandeering a spare toothbrush from a package in the cupboard. Having simply crashed last night without even so much as changing out of her clothes, she was getting a serious case of morning breath. She stared at herself in the mirror, a little surprised at how…well, bright-eyed her expression seemed. In the past couple years, she’d come to associate her reflection with a dour or otherwise disgruntled expression. Now, she thought…was she smiling a bit? Just a bit.

Flipping her reflection the bird, she meandered out and down the hallway to the stairs, leaving Rachel to sleep in. She descended into the main entryway, a cavernous room that was about the size of Chloe’s bedroom. The Caulfield family was rolling in the Benjamins, as ever. She strolled into the kitchen, smiling at the sight of that messy head of brown hair, pulled into a loose, careless bun that threatened to spill over Max’s shoulders. Max was still in her pajamas, a pair of adorable short-shorts that showed off a shit-ton of leg, and a loose-fitting t-shirt that hung off of her slender, narrow shoulders….

Damn it. It was way too soon after Chloe’s awakening to her sexuality to be in the same room as her female best friend while she was wearing such…provocative clothing! And anyway, there was still Rachel to consider. Way to perv on your best friend while your sort-of-almost-girlfriend snoozed away upstairs, Chloe!

“Oh, hey, Chloe,” Max’s soft voice said, and Chloe snapped back to the present to see Max looking back at her with one of the warmest smiles she had ever seen on a human being. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I slept great, actually,” Chloe said, crossing the kitchen to settle into a seat at the little island bar in the center. “You have a comfy floor.”

Max snickered but turned back to the stove, and Chloe leaned on the counter, looking over to see that there was a laptop set up nearby, plugged in to charge and showing an episode of….

“Is that that OG Power Rangers?” Chloe asked. “Holy shit. Blast from the past much?”

“Yeah!” Max said excitedly, an adorable smile on her face. “I found the DVDs, I totally forgot we once begged Dad to buy them for us.”

“Me too!” Chloe said. “God, we watched like…four episodes, and it was just so bad!”

“It’s even worse now,” Max admitted. “But there’s something kinda charming about how hammy they get. They’re trying so hard.”

“Dude, do you remember the – “

“The Arcadia Bay Power Rangers?” Max asked with a giggle, poking at a skillet before dropping some more bacon on a plate, a folded paper towel waiting to catch the excess grease. “I still have the comics in my trunk.”

“You kept those!?” Chloe asked, secretly happy but wanting to save face. “No, burn those. Like…Max that needs to be cleansed with fire. We were not right when we wrote that shit.”

“Aw, I think it’s kinda cute,” Max said. “Remember Rita Repulsa’s brother?”

“Bob,” Chloe sighed. “Seriously, Bob Repulsa. And his minions the Puppy Patrol.”

“You had to scratch their bellies to defeat them,” Max said, cringing a bit at the memory. “Weren’t you the blue ranger?”

“Uh, hell yeah,” Chloe said, smirking. “But I was the best fucking blue ranger ever. Not some fucking stereotype nerd. And you were the red ranger, right?”

“I was,” Max said with a fond smile at the memory. “God, we were so….”

“Way ahead of our time,” Chloe said, winking at her. Max smiled over her shoulder and turned to make her way over to the counter with a plate in her hand. Chloe saw two over-easy eggs on heavily-buttered toast with a pile of bacon. “Woah, that’s a hella nice spread! Max, when did you learn to cook?”

“Your mom taught me,” Max said, sounding a little distant as she set the plate down. “We spent a lot of time together after….”

“After I died?” Chloe asked, and Max nodded, looking down at her with that same intense expression she had worn last night while discussing the details of Chloe’s demise in the bathroom at Blackwell.

Seriously, it was such a lame death. She should have gone out in a blaze of glory with like a huge-ass gunfight, not getting shot by some pissy little Prescott. But that wasn’t her concern right now. Max was staring at her, and the look on her face was one of just…raw emotional pain. Chloe hopped to her feet and gently wrapped Max in a hug.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “I’m right here, Max. You saved me, remember? And now we’re together and nothing can stop us, right?”

Max nodded against her, her arms timidly coming up before wrapping tightly around Chloe, squeezing her as only Max Caulfield ever could. Because if anyone knew how to give a damn good hug, it was Max. Chloe returned the embrace just as firmly, feeling her best friend shaking in her arms, fingers twisting in Chloe’s shirt.

“Nothing,” she said softly, letting a shaky breath. Chloe kept one arm around her, the other coming up to gently trail through Max’s hair, and Max let a soft noise as she pressed into that touch. “Chloe, I missed you so much. I’m sorry – “

“Nuh-uh,” Chloe said. “You stop right there, Max Caulfield. After the shit-storm you’ve been through, you don’t apologize for anything, okay? Now hold still, and I’m gonna hug the hell outta you.”

Max snickered, shaking now with laughter as she snuggled into Chloe’s embrace.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

The moment lasted only a minute or so longer before a voice caused Max to tense up and gently extricate herself from Chloe’s embrace.

“I…hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Rachel said, and Chloe turned to see her leaning against the archway leading into the kitchen, toweling her hair dry. She was already dressed for the day, wearing a pair of Max’s shorts and a tank-top, and as she drew closer to Chloe, she smelled shampoo wafting off of her damp locks of hair. “Hey, don’t let me stop a hug. Sometimes you just need a hug, right?”

“Um…breakfast,” Max said, gesturing at Chloe’s plate. She hurried back over to the stove, bustling around before setting another plate down next to Chloe’s. This one had significantly less bacon, and the eggs were scrambled, the toast left plain since Max didn’t know how much butter Rachel preferred. “Eat up.”

“Oh, wow,” Rachel said, smiling at the plate Max had given her. “Max, you’re quite the chef, aren’t you?”

“I…maybe cheated a bit,” Max admitted. “It’s easy to not burn food when you can rewind back to before you did.”

“Way to find practical uses for your powers,” Rachel told her with a grin, and Max smiled back, which made Chloe’s heart thud in her chest. They were getting along! This was good!

“Um…” Chloe noised, casting around for any subject of conversation. “Um, so…Max, what’s the plan after breakfast? How are we gonna take Arcadia Bay by storm?”

Max smiled as she switched the burners off on the stove, making her way over to climb onto the remaining empty stool as the other two tucked into their breakfasts. She rested her elbows on the countertop, settling her chin into her hands.

“I’m going to apply to Blackwell,” she said. “And together, we’re gonna fuck up a lot of bad guys’ plans.”

“Oh, hell yes,” Chloe said with relish. “That’s the kinda shit I wanna hear. Let’s wreck some bad guy agenda.”

“We need to neuter Frank, discredit the Prescott family, and get Mark Jefferson arrested on whatever we can pin on him,” Max said, ticking off the items on her fingers. “If we take care of that, we should be able to actually make Arcadia Bay a place worth living in again. But to do all that, I need to be in Arcadia Bay.”

“The best way to do that would be a scholarship,” Rachel said. “I kinda went through some of your pictures last night when I couldn’t sleep, and you’re an awesome photographer If we can set you up some kind of portfolio, I bet we could talk Wells into letting you in.”

“The problem there is that I don’t have a lot of pictures taken yet,” Max said. “Not any good enough to get me into Blackwell, at least.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Chloe said, peering over at Max with a small pout. “You’re a hella awesome photographer, Max.”

“Okay, but not awesome enough for Blackwell to look at my stuff and give me a scholarship,” Max said. “At least, not when I was fourteen. But I’ve picked up some tricks, so if I can get some good pictures and show them to the school, maybe they’ll think my experience is just natural talent.”

“Good plan,” Chloe said, fixing Max with a beady look. “But I’ll only go along with it if you admit that you actually do _have_ natural talent.”

“Chloe….”

“Maxine Caulfield, I’m not gonna just sit here while you – “

“Alright,” Max said, and Chloe was rewarded with the adorable little pout Max got when she thought she was letting Chloe win an argument but was in fact just too proud to admit she had lost. “I might actually be a pretty good photographer and just need to make Blackwell see it, okay?”

Chloe smirked but gave a lofty little nod.

“Okay,” she said, biting into a bacon strip. “Holy shit, Max, this is good bacon!”

……

A train ride from Seattle to Portland (on an actual passenger car and not some grubby freight car) was only a few hours long, and Rachel had been happy to fund the journey if it meant actual cushioned seats and all the luxuries a short-term train ride entailed. From Portland, it was a short bus trip home to Arcadia Bay. The whole journey took enough time that it was well into the afternoon by the time the trio disembarked the bus and set foot into Arcadia Bay once more. For Rachel and Chloe, it had only been a day or so since they had left. For Max, it should have been much longer, but the way she stared around at the buildings as they approached the city, her eyes wide with recognition, Rachel would believe that she had only just left a couple days ago and was coming back from a trip she had never even wanted to make in the first place.

“Wowser,” she breathed. “It…hasn’t changed at all.”

“Yeah, Arcadia Bay never changes,” Chloe said from her seat next to Max, peering over her friend out the bus window. Rachel saw the way Chloe almost pressed herself right up against Max, noted how familiar and comfortable the contact seemed…and disregarded it with a little smile to herself. Chloe was way too kind for any such contact to be anything more than incidental, and it was painfully obvious that Max was important to her, possibly the _most_ important. But Chloe herself was important to Rachel, so that was that. Chloe was certainly making no effort to keep Rachel out of her life, and it even seemed to Rachel that Chloe was doing with she could to keep Rachel around, keep her a part of things. She plunked back down in her seat between the two girls, her fingers brushing little circles over the back of Rachel’s hand. Even that small motion sent little tingles up her arm, and she smiled over to see Chloe  grinning right back, and there was that earnest look that Rachel loved, the dorky, expectant expression like a little puppy that just brought you the newspaper and isn’t quite sure that it did a good thing.

“Hey,” Rachel said squeeze of Chloe’s hand, and Chloe’s smile widened. Rachel could almost imagine a little wagging tail.

“Hey,” she said back.

The bus pulled to a stop in front of the Two Whales, a diner Rachel had always heard mentioned during school but had never really been to. Climbing from their seats and stretching, the trio disembarked, Max hitching a backpack up on her shoulders. After some begging from all three girls, Ryan and Vanessa Caulfield had agreed to let their daughter spend the night at Chloe’s, since school would not be in session on Monday anyway.

Thank goodness for end-of-year exams and Max’s good grades exempting her from them.

“Yo, wanna hit up some food before we go to Blackwell?” Chloe asked, checking the time on her phone. “We have a bit before the next bus comes by anyway.”

“I’m not exactly eager to cram myself into another bus seat,” Rachel said. “And I’m starving.”

“I’m always ready for your mom’s Belgian waffles,” Max said with a smile up at Chloe, who blushed and smiled right back before visibly jolting and turning to Rachel with a sheepish expression. Rachel merely slid her fingers between Chloe’s, squeezing her hand and following her inside. She gave a gentle tug as Max went ahead and got the door.

“I’m not gonna get jealous because you missed her, you know,” she said. “You two are really cute.”

“I didn’t want you to think I was like bailing on you or something,” Chloe said with that same guilty wince. “I’m still all in for this.”

“Chloe Price, I know you would never two-time me like that,” Rachel told her, standing on her toes and placing a quick peck against Chloe’s lips before pulling her into the restaurant.

As soon as she stepped inside, Rachel’s stomach gave a hungry growl; she hadn’t realized how famished she had been, and the delicious aroma of an all-American diner had her mouth watering as she realized she could probably tackle a whole platter by herself. She followed as Max led them past a few booths and to one in particular, settling down in a seat while Chloe slid in opposite her. Rachel sat next to Chloe, looking around the diner. It had sort of a classic, nostalgic feel to it, but it was old without being worn. It was obvious that the owners made sure to keep it well-maintained. It was just as obviously quite popular, especially given that Arcadia Bay was on the way to just about everywhere in Oregon. Truckers probably accounted for more than half their sales, though Rachel spotted a couple of on-duty cops, what had to be a vacationing couple, and even a few other Blackwell students enjoying a “last meal” before another week of classes. Still, it was cozy, and Rachel could get used to eating at a place like this. Even a hellhole like Arcadia Bay had a few pockets of charm.

“Well, well, my wayward daughter still has time to try to mooch a free meal off of me,” a woman said as she strode up to them, and Rachel looked up to see Chloe’s mom standing there with a carafe of coffee in her hand. She placed down three cups and filled them up. “Welcome back to Arcadia Bay. I’m actually shocked you came home.”

“Well, I left some stuff in my room, you know,” Chloe said with a wry look at Joyce Price. “Drugs, stolen money, a contact list for some buyers in Seattle, the usual.”

“Chloe Price, if you ever try to pull something like that little train ride again, I will – “

“Mom, look,” Chloe said, pointing across the table. “It’s Max!”

Joyce turned to Max, who gave her a sweet little smile and a single wave of her hand.

“Hey, Joyce,” Max said. “It’s really good to see you again.”

“Max Caulfield,” Joyce said with a smile. “I wondered if I’d _ever_ see your face again.”

“I could never leave Chloe here all alone,” Max insisted. “And I missed your Belgian waffles.”

“Oh, I get it,” Joyce said with a little wink. “You just came back for my cooking, did you?”

“Is it that obvious?” Max smiled, and Joyce shook her head, spotting Rachel.

“I think I’ve got every troublemaker in town this evening,” she said. “You three up to no good?”

“You know it,” Chloe said before patting her stomach. “But we need some fuel in the tank, first.”

“I’m buying,” Max said. Joyce peered down at her with a beady eye.

“Don’t you even think about it,” she said as Rachel reached into her pocket, producing her wallet.

“Yeah, let me,” she said, shrugging. “I kinda owe it to you after dragging you into all this.”

Chloe looked like she was about to protest, but Rachel silenced her with a look. Really, it made the most sense; her family was fairly well-off, even more so than Max’s, so why shouldn’t she spend “Daddy’s Money” to help out her friends?

“Well, now that we’ve sorted out the bill,” Joyce said with a wry look, “why don’t we put some food on it? Max, Belgian waffle?”

“Extra whipped cream, of course,” Max added. Joyce let a small noise of amusement.

“Chloe, bacon cheeseburger, I assume?” she asked, and Chloe did a double finger-gun at her.

“You hella know it,” she said. “Emphasis on bacon.”

“And Rachel?” Joyce asked. Rachel glanced down at the menu, humming thoughtfully.

“Caesar salad?” she asked, earning a curious look from Chloe. “What? I like salad.”

“Weird,” Chloe muttered, and Rachel pouted up at her. “I mean…uh, that’s cute?”

Max snickered from across the table, adding plenty of sugar and creamer to her coffee before taking a sip. Rachel took a sip of her own, preferring it black, and eyed the girl from over the rim of her cup.

“So, where to after this?” Rachel asked as Joyce took their orders to the kitchen. “Blackwell?”

“I guess,” Max said. “I’d like to kinda wander around, get a lay of the land, take some pictures to pad out my portfolio. I checked online, and…well, this is a completely different Blackwell from the one I went to.”

“Maybe we could model in a few shots,” Chloe said with a pose in her seat. “You once told me I have the legs to be a model, right?”

“A fashion model, Chloe,” Max said. “Like on the runway. And if you do that, no more bacon cheeseburgers.”

“Ew, pass,” Chloe said, earning a giggle from Max, and Rachel had to admit, Max had one of the cutest, bubbly little giggles she had ever heard. It was easy to see why Chloe had gotten such a huge crush on her.

“Well, it might be good practice for dealing with models, though,” Rachel said. “Landscape photography is one thing, but when you’re taking pictures of people, you actually have to direct them and tell them how to stand, how to tip their chin and stuff. You know…so it might be a good idea to have us in a few pictures.”

“And you could always get some good couple shots to stick on Facebook,” Max said with a playful wink. “Imagine the scandal it would cause.”

“Like Arcadia Bay needs another scandal,” Chloe said. “At least I’d _cause_ that one instead of just somehow getting yanked into it.”

“You do seem to be like the scandal nexus around here,” Rachel told her. “I bet when we do finally get out of here you just get wrapped up in about twenty more wherever we end up.”

“That’s why I want an endless road trip,” Chloe said. “No scandals on the highway.”

“You’d get along with Jack Kerouac,” Max said, resting her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “Do you mind if I come along on this endless road trip?”

“Uh, duh,” Chloe said. “Someone’s gotta document the whole thing so we can publish a sick series of photography books.”

“I like it,” Rachel said. “We publish a bunch of books about how much fun we’re having and finance our road trip with the road trip itself. It’s sort of poetic.”

“But first, we have to beat some bad guys,” Max said, staring down into her cup of coffee with a thoughtful, faraway look. She was probably pondering the future she’d come from, the future she’d been so desperate to head off that she’d go to these lengths to stop it. Rachel sometimes forgot, so wrapped up in their little adventure, that there were some dire consequences, including hers and Chloe’s deaths. Again, she felt a little bubble of warmth that Max would include her in this plan of hers, make an effort to save her even though the two had never really met. Was Chloe that special to her? Or maybe, just maybe, whatever Max Caulfield had learned about Rachel had also had a hand in that decision.

That was certainly something worth exploring.

……

After a lunch that made it clear why the Two Whales was one of the most talked-about diners in Arcadia Bay, the trio boarded one last bus (poor Chloe bemoaning having to stuff her beanpole legs into yet another cramped bus seat) and headed for Blackwell. Chloe seemed nervous, especially after an apparent fiasco yesterday involving a drug dealer and Drew North, but Rachel was still a student and thus allowed to bring her friends along to campus. Probably. With Chloe’s recent expulsion, there was a possible wrench in that cover story, but Max seemed rather confident that they would avoid any security guards. Perhaps it was her ability to rewind and steer them away from where one would have been.

It was still a fun thing to think about. Rachel might have been jealous, but from Max’s account, time powers were more of a burden than a gift. They were dead useful, though, so she didn’t lament them too much.

“Any good photo ops jumping out yet, Mad Max?” Chloe said, and Max shrugged, shaking her head as she looked around.

“I think I’d like to do a little tour around first,” she said. “I don’t wanna come up with a good picture idea and found out that the backdrop hasn’t been built yet.”

“Good call,” Rachel said. “Hm…you know, I have a pair of aviators in my locker that I think we could use for a nice reflective look if we wanted to try like a close-up selfie or something. I mean, even modern photography is art, right?”

“Arguably,” Max said with a little smile as they headed for the main building. “But that actually does sound like it could work well, maybe with the fountain in the backdrop or….”

And Rachel saw in Max’s expression the most confusing myriad of expressions. She prided herself on being able to read people, but Max made it a challenge. Wide-eyed shock faded to the most venomous, pure rage she had ever seen, and it looked for a moment like she was blinking back tears before she managed to school her features into a perfect mask of such indifference that it was scary. There was still a hardness in her eyes, though, an icy burn to that soft blue.

“Or what?” Chloe asked, behind Max and thus oblivious to the change in her expression. Rachel turned, but she heard Principal Wells speaking before she saw him.

“…ourselves on a commitment to academic excellence,” he was saying as he stepped outside. “I can assure you, you’ll find only the most dedicated, committed students here, ready for you to guide them.”

“I’ve seen some of the work your students have done, and I have to admit that it’s impressive stuff,” another voice said, and Rachel felt a slight chill as she recognized it from…somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where. She turned fully around and saw Wells descending the stairs, followed by a man in dressy slacks and a button-down shirt with a jacket pulled over it. It was the man from Rachel’s the dream, the one that had wanted to bury her in American Rust.

“Ah, Miss Amber,” Principal Wells said when he saw the trio. “I see you’ve brought Miss Price along.”

“She’s expelled, not banished from campus, right?” Rachel asked, trying to keep most of the sass out of her voice. Wells only quirked an eyebrow at her.

“I suppose that’s true enough,” he admitted. “And who’s this? Another friend?”

“This is Max Caulfield,” Rachel said. “One of Chloe’s friends. She used to live here, but she moved to Seattle. She wants to come back and go to Blackwell.”

“I see,” Wells said while the other guy watched with interest from behind him. “Well, Miss Caulfield, if you wish to apply, you’ll have to go to the Blackwell website and have your parents fill out the proper forms. I’m afraid you can’t just walk up and apply.”

“If I might, Ray?” the other man said, stepping forward and eyeing the trio. “I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced. My name is Mark Jefferson. You…well, I hate to sound pretentious, but you might have heard of me.”

“I have,” Max said, and Rachel thought she might have heard just a little too much fervor in her voice. Well, it could probably be mistaken for Max feeling nervous around an idol. Hopefully. “I’m…a photographer. Or…I want to be.”

“Well, it sure looks like you already are,” Mark Jefferson said with a gesture at the binder tucked under Max’s arm. “May I?”

Max blinked up at him but passed the binder over. The three had gathered up what they had all agreed to be the best of Max’s work and even taken a few pictures in the short time between breakfast and the train ride to Portland. Max’s instant camera might be dated, but at least the results were right there with no fussing with photo printers.

“I see your favor a vintage approach,” Jefferson said, thumbing through the pages.

“I just feel like each shot has more impact that way,” Max said, her voice much more level this time. Rachel idly wondered if she had rewound in an attempt to keep the delivery calm. “You only get once chance at the perfect picture.”

“Very true,” Jefferson said, flipping another page while Wells hovered nearby. Rachel took a moment to enjoy the way he squirmed, his perfect itinerary ruined by their surprise visit. No doubt his whole tour would be thrown off, the poor guy. Jefferson kept perusing the album, oblivious to Wells’s silent impatience or possibly simply dismissing it. “These are some good shots…Max, was it?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “Max Caulfield.”

“Max Caulfield,” Jefferson said, peering at the other two. “Ah, and unless I’m mistaken, Prospera and Ariel? You have quite the stage presence.”

“No lessons at all,” Chloe said, dusting off her shoulder. “Just pure talent.”

Jefferson spared them a look before fixing his gaze back to Max, and Rachel didn’t like the way his eyes lit up, like a cat that’s just spotted a mouse and is thinking of the best way to pounce it. Max couldn’t keep the hard intensity out of her eyes, no matter how she might control her facial expression, and it was obvious that Jefferson was reading this as some sort of challenge.

“Well, Max Caulfield,” he said, passing the portfolio back to her. “I look forward to teaching you.”

“Oh, you’ve taught me plenty already,” Max said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Even so,” Jefferson folded his arms, “Ray, I would consider it a hideous waste of talent if this girl wasn’t accepted into my inaugural year at Blackwell.”

“Ah, does that mean you’re accepting our offer?” Wells said, looking a little surprised at the sudden shift in Jefferson’s attitude. The soon-to-be teacher only smiled at the three girls.

“Well, with such fresh young talent, I would be a fool not to,” he said. “I hope I see all three of you in my introductory class next year.”

“Well, Chloe’s been expelled, so that might be difficult,” Max said with a pointed look at Wells, who huffed, blustering for a moment before speaking.

“Well…we can discuss this in more detail at a later time,” Wells said. “For now, Mark, the tour?”

“Yes, of course,” Jefferson said with what was probably supposed to be a boyishly charming smile back at the girls. “It’s been lovely meeting all of you.”

“Likewise,” Max said while Rachel just waved, Chloe managing a single halfhearted flick of the wrist.

“He’s kinda cute,” she said once the pair were out of sight.

“Chloe,” Rachel said with a gesture at Max, whose hands were shaking, and Chloe blinked, hurrying over to wrap the girl in a hug.

“Hey,” she said. “Hey, c’mon, Max. This is the New Game Plus, remember? We’re trying for the perfect ending, and we’re so gonna get that shit.”

“Yeah,” Max said, returning the hug tightly enough that Rachel saw Chloe wince a bit. “And we are going to get him.”

Even with all she knew about Mark Jefferson, in that moment, Rachel almost felt sorry for him. Because the look in Max’s eyes and the fury in her voice were unlike anything Rachel had ever heard. And she pitied Jefferson the day that fury came down on him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, there's been some confusion as a result of this story just sort of being written as ideas occur to me. As such, Max's age has sort of fluctuated as I've learned more about the timeline. As I've learned, Max is fourteen in this story, Chloe is sixteen, and Rachel is fifteen. I believe.

American Rust was much as Max remembered it, though she supposed that had something to do with the fact that it wouldn’t _be_ as she remembered it for a few years. She was well and truly a girl out of time. People she knew wouldn’t recognize her, friends she had made were strangers again. The only real constant, as ever, was Chloe, who would always be a little bemused but totally down for whatever time-bending nonsense Max came to her with. She had only really realized the gravity of this situation an hour ago, when she had come face to face with someone she’d come to associate with a demon, the only truly evil person she had ever met in person. She hadn’t really been ready, and it was only thanks to her rewind power that she hadn’t exploded in apoplectic rage at him. And she had, twice, but thanks to her rewind, the conversation had ended out quite smoothly.

“Max, seriously, it’s not a race!” Chloe said, and Max paused a bit, her hands still shaking a bit as she turned in a slow circle. Chloe slowed to a stop near her, eyes wide, and Max felt a little guilty at the lost look she wore. This wasn’t a Chloe that was hardened by years of the seedy underside of Arcadia Bay. This was a Chloe much more akin to the one she had left, still with a modicum of hope remaining. Max couldn’t bring herself to crush that…well, that adorable expression. Chloe was just too darn cute sometime. She managed a little smile, making her way over and holding her arms out hesitantly. Chloe shot a look at Rachel, who just rolled her eyes, striding toward Chloe and holding her arms out to bodily push her toward Max.

“Hug the girl, damn it,” she said. Max felt Chloe collide with her, felt those bony arms wrap around her, and she sighed into her best friend, melting against Chloe’s chest. She still smelled the same, faintly of pot, cigarette smoke, and William’s cologne, which she had taken to using after his death, if only to keep his memory alive, Max supposed.

“Mmmm,” Max found herself humming in contentment against Chloe, sighing and feeling all of the tension leave her body in that one breath. Chloe was here. She was safe. She had been warned, and so she would be extra careful around Jefferson.

“You two are just adorable,” Rachel said from nearby, and then she was hugging the pair of them. Chloe shifted her grip to include Rachel in the hug, Max doing the same, and then they were just a hug pile, Max happier than she could ever remember being in that moment. Chloe. Rachel. She couldn’t imagine life without Chloe, and Rachel was…well, Max could see what attracted Chloe to her. She wasn’t some mysterious perfect pixie that was able to flit between niches and belong nearly everywhere; she was just a girl, damaged as the rest, looking for a place to fit in and unable to find it anywhere despite being able to blend.

“You guys are…amazing,” Max breathed. “Both of you. I’m…glad I have you both.”

“Aw, we’ll always have your back,” Chloe said, nuzzling gently into the top of Max’s head, and Rachel gave her a little squeeze.

“Both of us,” she said, and Max looked up to see her smiling warmly. “You’re…pretty great yourself, Max Caulfield.”

“Well, that’s…high praise coming from you,” she said, and Chloe tugged them both toward a small building, that Max remembered as the hideout where Rachel and Chloe had whiled away hours and days, escaping from the world in general. But soon, the world would had crept up and gotten them anyway.

Max shook her head as she followed the other two into the little shack. That wouldn’t happen again. Not this time. Not ever. She blinked as she found the little hideaway a bit worse for wear. Or maybe it simply hadn’t had enough wear undone yet?

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Rachel said wryly, looking around with a raised eyebrow. “Very post-modern trash pit.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Chloe said with a smirk. “I didn’t exactly have much time to spend fixing it up. It was mostly just stuff I found and figured it would look good.”

“Well…let’s ask Max,” Rachel said, turning to Max and smiling at her. “Did she even make a dent in this place?”

Max giggled apologetically at Chloe but shook her head. “It looked way better the last time I saw it.”

Chloe huffed, folding her arms and quietly mimicking the claim, sticking her tongue out in Max’s direction, which she only responded to with a giggle. Rachel snorted at the exchange, moseying around the place.

“Well,” she said, “what do we need to do, Max? You’ve seen the finished product.”

“We definitely need to clear out about all of this junk,” Max said with a nod. “To start.”

Rachel nodded, and they set to work, and as they worked, they planned.

“So, Mark Jefferson is already here,” Rachel said, passing by Max while dragging along a decrepit plastic sign that had probably once been part of a light or something before tossing it into a pile of garbage. “You seem to be a little upset with him.”

“It all comes back to him,” Max told her. “You, Chloe, Nathan, he’s…ruined so many lives. And thanks to the Prescott family, he gets a nice little setup here, kidnapping and…and torturing innocent girls.”

“That’s fucked up,” Chloe said as she strode out with a huge, shapeless chunk of processed wood of her shoulders, tossing it toward another pile of garbage and completely taking out a mannequin. “So, how do we stop him?”

“It’s not just him,” Max said, pausing and leaning against the wall of the shack. She had already dispensed of her sweater, leaving her in only a tank-top, and she blushed a bit at the appreciative looks she was getting from both girls. “We need to cut off _every_ head, or it’ll only grow back two more for every one we get.”

“Hail Hydra,” Rachel said, and Max peered curiously over at her while Chloe smirked her way. “What? I read comics.”

“So, how many heads are there?” Chloe asked, trotting into the shack and emerging moments later with the box spring from a mattress. Max hastened to help her drag it over to a pile of trash, speaking as she did.

“At least three,” she explained. “Jefferson, the Prescotts, and Frank Bowers. If we can take out the Prescotts first, we take away Jefferson’s access to pretty much unlimited money. Then we take out Jefferson before he can skip town. To do that…I might have to keep him…interested.”

“Max….” Chloe trailed off with a look at her, and Rachel made her way over, leaning against the wall next to her and wrapping an arm around her. Max smiled up at her, shifting and tucking herself into Rachel’s embrace, enjoying the show of affection from the mysterious girl.

“Are you sure?” Rachel asked. “You’re the only one that…well, was there for anything he did. Or will do. Right now, you’re the only one that remembers the Dark Room.”

Max blinked, shaking away the creeping, oily memories of that…that place. It was hard to do so, though. Despite it having been months since the incident with Jefferson, despite having rewritten a few timelines to undo the fact that it had ever even _happened_ , she still remembered the constant click of the shutter, the sterile white décor, the heavy sluggish feeling the drugs had left her with, and the soft but menacing whisper of Jefferson’s voice.

_“Always take the shot….”_

“Max?” Chloe’s voice asked, and Max’s gaze jerked up to see those gorgeous blue eyes staring down at her with concern, her best friend’s lips parted as she gripped Max’s shoulders. Fuck, how she longed to just close the scant few inches between them and just…kiss her again. Max had only gotten two good kisses out of Chloe, an innocent peck as the result of a dare and something much more heated, full of empty promises, before she had Focused back to that awful day in the bathroom and obliterated one of the best weeks of her life. She could remember with perfect clarity the soft feel of Chloe’s lips against her own, tasting of cigarette smoke and lip balm. If she thought about it hard enough, she could still taste Chloe’s tongue as it probed into her lips, clashing with her own almost nervously. Only Chloe could be simultaneously so gung-ho and so tentative at the same time, the bravest little puppy dog ever. It all felt so real as she thought about it, like it was happening right now….

 _Oh, shit_ , she found herself thinking as her eye snapped open, seeing Chloe’s face close, too close, her own eyes shut as she languidly moved her lips against Max’s. Max tried to react, tried to conjure the energy to freak out, but as she felt Chloe pressed against her, surrounding her with her…her entire presence, she could only relax, inhaling that amazingly Chloe scent. Her eyes fluttered back shut, hands moving up to gently glide her fingertips along Chloe’s arms.

They spent another minute or so just kissing, Max enjoying Chloe’s presence the undeniable proof of her being right here, safe and sound, before Chloe pulled away, gasping and looking nervously at Rachel.

“Um…” she trailed off, but that single syllable seemed to resonate with the entire moment. Max could think of nothing better to describe the goings-on, at least. Rachel just smirked, making her way toward Max.

“Oh…” Max gasped, trailing off as she felt another searing kiss being pressed against her lips, Rachel now claiming a spot on Max’s list of Hella Best Kisses Ever. Where Chloe was, as ever, clumsy and inexperienced but enthusiastic, Rachel’s kisses were methodical and perfectly paced. Just as Max felt like she might run out of air, Rachel broke off for a quick breather before diving back in. She tasted of Two Whales coffee and mint gum, a combination that didn’t sound enticing at all, but Max knew that she would always associate the flavor with kisses from now on. Just as she was wondering if a kiss slut was a real thing, Rachel pulled back, smiling warmly at Max.

“There,” she said. “Now we’ve all kissed each other, right?”

“Um…” Max breathed.

“Yeah,” Chloe said with a bemused laugh. “I think you mighta broke her.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking about it,” Rachel said. “I can sit here and be all jealous of you two, or Max can be jealous of us, or…we can all just say fuck social norms and make out with each other. I like you, Chloe, but you like Max and you like me. And Max likes you, and…maybe Max and I like each other?”

“I like you,” Max hastened to assure Rachel, who rewarded her with the kind of smile that made it easy to realize how she had charmed so very many people.

“I like you too,” she said. “Wanna share Chloe and make out with each other?”

“I…wowser….”

“That’s a yes,” Chloe said with a breathy laugh. Rachel just glanced between them both with that same little smile.

“Good.”

……

“Did you hear from Max yet?” Rachel asked, and Chloe shrugged against her, picking up a dart and tossing it at the dartboard she had hung up in their hideout. It missed by a good foot, bouncing off of the wall and landing pitifully next to her first attempt.

“She texted me this morning saying her parents were thinking about it,” she said.

“Parents always say that when they don’t want to admit that their kid has their life figured out better than they could plan it for them,” Rachel told her, tossing a dart and landing it inches away from the bullseye. “That’s what Mom and Dad told me when I told them I wanted to go to Blackwell.”

“Well, then I guess she’s gonna be joining us next year?” Chloe asked, and Rachel nodded.

“Mhm,” she noised. “Both of us.”

Earlier that morning, Joyce Price had gotten a pleasant surprise in the form of a phone call from Ray Wells, telling her that after a review of her files, Chloe Price had been reinstated as a student at Blackwell, citing her prodigious potential as both a student and a citizen of Arcadia Bay. He had not minced words, however; if Chloe fucked up again, she would be out on her ass, and not even Max Caulfield’s doe eyes would be enough to get her back into Blackwell’s good graces. Chloe would need to be on her best behavior, and as much as she hated to admit it, she _would_ be. Max had gone out on a limb, tread well past her comfort zone and basically made a deal with the devil by using her charms on Mark Jefferson. It was no secret that Max had history with the soon-to-be teacher, and it wasn’t a pretty one. For her to step up like she had had to have been quite an effort, and Chloe didn’t have any plans to put it to waste.

“Max is pretty amazing, isn’t she?” Chloe said, and Rachel smiled up at her, nuzzling into her shoulder.

“She really is,” she agreed, passing Chloe another dart. “And so are you. Just not at darts.”

“Oh, eat me,” Chloe said, aiming her next dart as Rachel shifted against her. Just as she was going to throw it, she felt soft lips against her ear.

“Is that an offer?” Rachel whispered, and Chloe tossed the dart…right out the door. “Smooth.”

“No fair, that was cheating!” Chloe protested, huffing and watching as Rachel sank another dart into the corkboard, in a black section inside the first ring. “And anyway, you’re awesome at this, you don’t even _need_ to cheat.”

“But it’s fun to watch you get all blushy,” Rachel cooed. “You and Max, I swear. You were so closeted for each other, it’s too cute. I can’t even be mad.”

“Yeah, she’s still freaking out about this,” Chloe said with a little smile. “At least she’s finally texting me on the regular.”

“What about _you_?” Rachel asked softly. “Are you freaking out?”

“I’m sorta always freaking out lately,” Chloe admitted with a little shrug and a sidelong glance at Rachel. “Why do you think I smoke weed?”

“Chloe….”

“It’s…hella weird,” Chloe said. “But not in like a bad way. I mean, I get two hot chicks to make out with all the time? That’s pretty dope. It’s just…I dunno, I can’t shake the guilty feeling?”

“Well, if you feel guilty for kissing Max, just kiss me right after,” Rachel told her, and Chloe smirked.

“Then I’ll have to kiss Max because I kissed you,” she said.

“Then kiss us both forever,” Rachel told her as though it were the most obvious solution ever.

“Oh, well, that’ll be simple enough,” Chloe agreed with a wry roll of her eyes, leaning in and planting a little peck on Rachel’s lips. She pulled back as her phone buzzed in her pocket, drawing it out to see a text. From Frank?

**_From: Frank Bowers_ **

_[hey where r u? I got another job for you]_

**_To: Frank Bowers_ **

_[I’m kinda in the middle of something.]_

**_From: Frank Bowers_ **

_[well, get out of it.]_

_[same place as before, meet me.]_

_[I’ll be there in ten.]_

**_To: Frank Bowers_ **

_[great. Whose life are we ruining now?]_

**_From: Frank Bowers_ **

_[well, do you know someone named Victoria Chase?]_

Oh. Well, this would be interesting.


	5. Chapter 5

It was chilly, and the air felt…strangely damp. Max fumbled around for her covers, but her hand met…dirt? Her eyes snapped open, and she scrambled to her feet, spinning around in a hurried circle. She’d had too much experience waking up in strange places, and it was not something she was happy to be reliving. Worse still, her surroundings were all too familiar, the looming trees towering over her, the dirt path winding up the hill that led to the lighthouse. It was pitch black outside, a fact not helped at all by the thick fog rolling in off of the ocean. A flash of light pierced the night, and Max was uncomfortably reminded of her vision of the storm, but it was just the lighthouse, the beam of light extra visible due to the mist.

_I’m here again? But there’s no storm this time. What does this mean?_

She trod the familiar path up toward the lighthouse, her footsteps seeming a little too quiet and close in the oppressive fog. It only seemed to grow thicker the higher she climbed, closing in on her and rendering Arcadia Bay invisible through the whiteness. She reached the bench and dared not take another step for fear of falling right over the cliff, staring out toward the spot where she knew Arcadia Bay sat nestled into the cliffside.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice said, starling Max. She looked back at the bench to see…herself? It was definitely Max Caulfield, but she was the age Max had been before she had Focused, Max’s real age, and she was wearing a black dress not unlike the one she had worn to Chloe’s funeral. She was staring out over the water, or would be, were it not obscured by the fog. “Have a seat.”

She patted the bench next to her, and Max moved to sit, feeling strange sitting next to herself and even stranger having to look up at her. At fourteen, Max had only come up to about her adult self’s shoulder. After a few seconds’ staring didn’t yield so much as a glance from her older self, Max turned and tried to see what she was seeing through the fog, but it was impossible. It was just too dense. As she sat there, a raven fluttered over and landed on the arm of the bench, staring at her for a long moment.

“Death haunted her for so long,” Max’s older self said, and she turned to see her older face staring intently back, her eyes unnervingly black and filled with stars. “It circled around all three of you, drawn by the senseless tragedy of her father’s death.”

“Chloe?” Max asked. “Is she still in danger?”

Her older self shook her head, looking up around them, and Max followed her gaze to see a cloud of glowing blue butterflies fluttering around them. “You have saved her,” she said. “For the time being, they are both protected. The Blue Butterfly of Time, whose flapping wings can cause a Tempest…and the Dryad, a primordial force of nature who, when released, bears her wrath down on those that have wronged her.”

“Rachel?” Max asked. “She…she made the storm?”

The other Max nodded. “Her spirit is a wild, restive thing, barely contained in her Earthly form,” she said. “When released, her wrath came down on those who wronged her, on the place that caused her so much grief.”

“But she could have killed Chloe,” Max said, and her counterpart smiled, those starry eyes peering down at her.

“She realized that,” her doppelganger said. “That’s why we’re here. You were given…me.”

Max blinked at her for a moment before realization set in, her eyes widening. “You…you’re…my power?”

The other Max nodded, still with that same mysterious smile on her face. “She needed to protect the one person that never betrayed her, never left her side, never gave up on her. But…as I said, Death follows her. She needed you to protect her, and you needed me.”

“So when I Focused and…and fucked up the timeline, that was you?”

“It was,” she nodded. “Your most recent efforts saved your friends…but at the expense of your own life.”

“I…would have died?” Max gasped, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that her stupid younger self probably wouldn’t have heeded Chloe’s secondhand warnings about Jefferson and likely gotten wrapped up in his honeyed words all over again. “Wowser….”

Her other self gave her a sad sort of smile. “I did the best I could,” she said. “I carried all of your memories, all of your essence, and placed them back at the point of your Focus, severed your connection to the future.”

She gestured out at the fog enveloping Arcadia Bay, and Max looked between the obscured town and her counterpart. Her companion stood and made her way to the edge of the cliff, Max following.

“It’s all shrouded now,” she said. “The future hasn’t simply been rewritten, it’s been completely blotted out, to be lived anew by you.”

“So…wait, that means….”

“This is your chance to begin again,” her doppelganger said. “To right wrongs that haven’t happened yet, to step in and save lives that would have been lost. This is your canvas, Max Caulfield. You fancy yourself a photographer, but you should try painting a brighter future.”

She gestured out once more at the blank wall of fog, which was glowing brighter but no more clearer as the sun crested the horizon.

And then it was completely white, and Max was staring around, looking for any color, anything to break the monotony. As her search grew more desperate, she spotted a patch of blue, a single spot of brightness against the stark white expanse around her. And then there was another glimmer, then another, until the flickers of blue began to overshadow the featureless white. The cluster of color began to shift and shimmer, and Max realized that it wasn’t a blot of blue but a swarm, a swirling torrent of butterflies. The fluttering cloud swirled around her, forming a vortex of blue until –

Her eyes shot open, and she gasped, blinking away the clinging visions of her dream as she stared up at her ceiling. The textured plaster seemed dim and dull after the vivid colors of her dream. It wasn’t until her phone buzzed that she realized that had been what had awoken her. Fumbling for the phone, she almost knocked her lamp over, still unused to the setup of her bedroom from so many years ago compared to her dormitory at Blackwell. She swiped and blinked as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of her screen before she saw Chloe’s face. She was getting a call! Max swiped again and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Chloe, what’s wrong?” she asked softly, eyes widening when she heard Rachel’s voice in frantic whisper.

“Max, you can go back, right?” she asked. “Like…you can use a picture to go back?”

“Yeah,” Max said immediately, all traces of sleep leaving her brain as she sat up and climbed from her covers. “Rachel, what’s happening?”

“Look, did you take your morning selfie?” Rachel asked her, and Max rolled her eyes with a rueful smile. Rachel had been trying to get her in the habit of taking a selfie every morning in case something happened that needed to be warned about and stopped. But that must have meant….

“Rachel…what happened?” Max asked, and Rachel sighed into the phone.

“Max, did you take it?”

“Yes, but Rachel, what’s going on?” Max asked pleadingly.

“Max, I need you to listen carefully to what I say,” Rachel told her. “And then go back, write it down, and get yourself from this morning to tell us all of it.”

“Is everything okay?” Max asked, and Rachel let a breathy laugh into the phone.

“It will have been,” she said. “But we need to save Victoria Chase’s life.”

“…Wowser.”


End file.
